


Don't Tell Me, I Know This One

by Littlebiscuits



Category: Far Cry 5
Genre: Bad Decisions, Drunken Confessions, Hangover, M/M, Mystery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-18
Updated: 2018-11-13
Packaged: 2019-07-13 21:19:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16026173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Littlebiscuits/pseuds/Littlebiscuits
Summary: Rook wakes up hungover in the back of the bar, and it only gets worse from there.





	1. The Confession

The one thing Rook knows for certain about the world when he wakes up, is that there's too much of it. Too much light, too much noise, too much air to breathe, too much dust touching him from every direction. It feels less like a hangover and more like someone regrew him in a very large pot overnight, as if his whole body is still raw and new. 

He hates every second of it. He needs to stop having drunk adventures with Sharky and Hurk, during the brief periods when Eden's Gate aren't actively turning the county upside down. Because they never end well, and Rook makes so many promises about all the stupid things he won't do next time they get drunk, and then promptly forgets them all once he can't walk straight.

Rook very carefully maneuvers himself upright, which is worse, it's so much worse. Everything aches, it's a horrible, throbbing discomfort that suggests he'd fallen down some stairs last night, possibly more than once. His head hurts worst of all, which seems to be entirely the fault of his eyes, which refuse to apologise, they're just sitting there in his skull, feeling four sizes too big. He doesn't feel sick, which is the one thing the universe has chosen to gift him with this morning. He is, however, the thirstiest he's ever been in his entire life.

He's also in the back of the bar, clearly too drunk to accomplish home in any capacity.

Rook should probably hand in his deputy badge at this point, since he must be technically on duty, somewhere, in some universe. Though it occurs to him that his badge is probably still in Dutch's bunker somewhere. Which is something that's not allowed, and he's either going to have to get it back at some point, or write up a report about his reckless loss of department property. 

He makes his way to the nearest sink, and tries to gently drown himself in it, until he feels properly awake, and more capable of being a functioning member of society.

Mary May is cleaning glasses when he opens the door and heads into the main bar. She looks at him, then winces sympathy, in a way that suggests he didn't quite drown himself hard enough.

"Good morning," she says, then smiles wide enough to look like laughter all on its own. "I wondered if you'd be up today."

"People keep letting me drink with Hurk and Sharky," he says, pulling a stool out and slowly falling onto it. "Why do you all keep letting me do that?"

The laughter's obvious then. But Rook can't even be irritated at the noise, Mary May has done nothing but be kind to him since he met her.

"Deputy, you're a grown man, I think that one's entirely on you."

"Oh God, that's not what I wanted to hear," he says sadly. "That just makes me feel like everything is especially my fault." He resists the urge to collapse forward on his own arms. He's up now, he's going to live with the consequences.

Mary May must feel some small sliver of sympathy though, because she pours him a coffee and brings it over, sets it down under him so the steam gently bats at his face. Which is weirdly nice, is this a hangover thing? Does Mary May know secret hangover cures? Has she been holding out on people all this time?

"So, how much do you remember?" she asks carefully.

Rook pauses with his mug of coffee half lifted, because she says that like there's something specific he's supposed to remember, something he's supposed to have feelings about this morning. Or worse, something that he might have to feel guilty about.

Jesus, what did he do?

"I remember most of the drinking," he admits slowly. "If there was a slow slide into bad decision-making later in the night I may have erased it from my memory." He rubs gently at his eyes, which still feel tender.

Mary May's expression is somewhere between amused and apologetic. And he just knows there's something she's dying to tell him, but she knows he's going to hate every moment of it. There was bad decision-making, Rook can feel it in his bones.

"Mary May, what did I do?"

She sighs out a breath and leans into the bar, like she's about to share a secret.

"You may have drunkenly confessed your love over an open, long range radio," she tells him.

Well that feels a little bit like missing a step, on the grand staircase of life. Rook puts the cup of coffee back down again, without doing much more than inhaling the steam.

"For who?" he asks, throat suddenly painfully dry. 

Mary May straightens, reaches back through the hole, so she can put another pot of coffee on. As if she thinks he might need it. God, this is going to be worse than he's expecting, isn't it?

"Well now, that's the thing. You didn't exactly confess to a name, you just went on a whole ramble down the radio, like they were actually listening, telling them that they were majestic, and intelligent and terrifying. You told him that you couldn't stop thinking about him. That he needed to stop showing up when you were trying not to think about him, being all dramatic and threatening and crazy. You asked him if he thought about you. And then you told the object of your affection that even though they were, and I quote, 'kind of insanely fucked up, due to all the shit they'd been through,' you didn't care, you'd love them anyway. You told him that you'd been dreaming about him, a few of which you shared with everyone, and Rook those descriptions were very enthusiastic and _explicit_. Oh, and then you got annoyed because you were using the word 'dick' too much, so you solicited alternatives from the bar." Mary May clearly still finds the last part amusing, God knows how many hours later. 

Rook makes some sort of noise in his throat. 

Mary May hasn't finished. She hasn't _finished_ , and she tosses a cloth over her shoulder and comes over to him, leans into the bar next to him so she can lower her voice and share the rest of it.

"There was a lot of talk about his blue eyes, I feel like that is a thing you have definitely noticed about him, and about the way he looked at you, about how you loved his voice, and you stayed places you shouldn't, just so you could listen to it. You asked why he had his hair like that, but then admitted that you kind of liked it and wanted to touch it. You wanted to know how many tattoos he had, and if he'd show you all of them, which may have briefly taken you somewhere a little explicit again."

Mary May stops for a second, like she's lost her train of thought, then clears her throat and starts again.

"Ok, a lot explicit. The word lust was repeated about fifty times, and then you wanted a dictionary definition of it, I think you were looking for a loophole of some sort. Because you started muttering that you wanted to touch him, and it wasn't fair. Which started you rambling for a while, about how you couldn't join a cult for him, no matter how many ways he asked you to. And how you knew his brothers would disapprove, but then you said that you were willing to work on it, for them, and all of the people in the county. There was a whole speech about how you didn't want to kill them, but you couldn't be one of their soldiers, even though you would jump in front of a wolverine if they were in danger, which distracted you for a bit into a wolverine tirade, that to be honest I've heard from you before, but never with quite so much venom. I think that was just the scariest thing your drunk brain could think up, to be honest."

Rook makes another noise, and then decides that drowning himself in coffee might be a viable strategy here.

Mary May's face is all sympathy at this point. She leans down on her arms.

"Rook, you don't need anyone's permission to be interested in someone, you know that right? After everything you've done for us, no one is going to fault you for wanting something for yourself, for making poor relationship choices. Or at least no one is going to do it twice. Because it sounds a lot like you've fallen for a Peggie? I mean, I'm not judging, we've all made terrible decisions in the name of love, or lust - let's be honest it's usually lust - but you know they're almost all fanatics. And they're all pretty focused on that whole end times prophecy, that requires you to either be saved or crushed underfoot, with all your property confiscated. We just don't want you to get hurt."

Rook rubs his eyes again, and sighs agreement, because Mary May isn't telling him anything he doesn't already know.

"Yeah, I know, you're not telling me anything I haven't told myself." But it seems that drunk him didn't get the memo that this was something they were going to leave the fuck alone. He feels like it's too much to hope that that was the end of it. "Was that it?" Please, God let that be it.

Her head tilt is apologetic.

"Well you muttered for while about him 'making you do things you didn't want to do,' and then you made a very dirty joke, which you immediately apologised for, and then got confused about whether humour was a sin. Which led to a rant about sin, that eventually trailed off into a pretty depressing story you read recently, about a man who spent six days alone in a well, before drowning. Which made you sad, because you kept insisting his family hadn't even noticed he was gone, and you promised that you'd be there for them if 'sad shit like that' turned up in the papers again. Then you mumbled something about being too young to get married, and we carried you into the back and let you sleep the rest of it off."

Rook drinks half his coffee in one go. It's still very hot, he regrets it deeply.

Mary May comes all the way into his personal space, and settles a hand over his shoulder. She rubs at the knots of embarrassed misery forming somewhere at the back of his neck.

"Honestly, you've been working non-stop since this whole thing started, and you barely sleep. You've never taken a moment to yourself, you've never even mentioned anyone you might have had feelings for. By the end, everyone just felt sorry for you. The others think you should just try and make it work, whoever it is, they say they'll deal with the fallout, if it explodes in your face."

Rook drinks the rest of his hot coffee, which feels a lot like a punishment he deserves.

Mary May must read something in his posture of terrible regret, because she squeezes his shoulder gently.

"And if you don't want to, I mean what are the odds that he was listening to a random, drunk broadcast in the middle of the night?" she offers.

Yeah, what are the odds? 

Rook is going to need more coffee before he's ready for today. He just knows it.


	2. Joseph

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's been a while since I wrote the first part, but I really wanted to come back and give everyone a chapter of their own. I felt bad leaving hungover Rook quietly humiliated and miserable. So, yes, they all get their own chapter. And then maybe one at the end where Rook's pining over all of them, I don't know *throws up hands*

Two cups of coffee and a vague attempt at breakfast, has not made Rook feel any better.

Though 'better' is probably the wrong word, considering the fact that half the county probably heard his drunken ramble, his explicit drunken ramble. 

He's not in the mood to listen to any more of Mary May's sympathetic noises, or to read any more of Nick's texts, asking whether he's going to 'try and make his Romeo and Juliet thing work.' Rook can't decide whether he's supposed to be Romeo or Juliet in that scenario. He's probably neither, he's probably a side character that dies halfway through, after doing something stupid. 

Rook's resigned to not answering his phone for the rest of the day. He thinks the safest thing to do is to just refuse to acknowledge that any of it happened, if he does that hard enough, and long enough, there's a slim chance that everyone else will just forget about the whole thing. With any luck there'll be a particularly large, cult-based explosion which will both give everyone something else to focus on, and remind Rook that the object of his affection is exactly the sort of person that everyone's parents warn them about. Someone who's going to set his life on fire, take everything from him, and probably get him killed eventually.

No matter how hard the world seems to be pushing them together, throwing them into each other's orbit, against all sense. 

If there are no explosions, then Rook's going to find something in the woods that needs his immediate attention, a nest of wolverines or some abandoned bunker that needs un-flooding. Anything rather than deal with his own problems. He's sometimes felt guilty about thinking that the one good thing about this place, was the sheer number of distractions it gave you away from your own problems. But, honestly, today he'll take it, because his own problems are the last thing he wants to be thinking about right now.

He stops walking when the radio at his waist clicks, hand dropping to pick it up, just in case it's important.

_"Deputy."_

Ok, Rook was lying, _that's_ the last thing he wants right now.

_"I heard your confession last night, Deputy. Though I am disappointed that you didn't choose to come to me. That you instead felt the need to unburden yourself while under the influence of alcohol, while among those who would mock you for your honesty - and you were extremely honest, excessively some might say, over an open frequency. But it's clear you've been trying to restrain yourself, trying to fight your urges, your lust. A more personal confession, a joining before God, so your desires can be indulged without fear, without judgement."_

There's something quietly excited in John's voice that Rook just isn't in the mood for. 

"It's not you, John," Rook says, when John takes a moment to breathe. He's tempted to hold the button down, to deny John the opportunity to talk at him some more. But that feels too much like giving him attention. Because Rook thinks that John Seed is a bit like Peaches, if you leave him little scattered treats of attention, the bastard will follow you home and claw up your couch cushions.

And, yes, that analogy fell apart a little there, but in his defence he's had a difficult last few days.

_"Deputy."_

It's coaxing, as if John thinks that it could be him, if he tried hard enough. As if Rook's life isn't complicated and painful enough already.

"Still not you." Rook turns the radio off.

He goes to the boat house at the bend of the river. It's one of the first places he'd used to stash some spare ammo, some granola bars and a bow, not realising yet how plentiful weapons and ammo would be across the county. He still goes back there occasionally, mostly because no one else does. He's been using the old lifejacket box to keep things in, though he's seriously considering pulling out all of the beer and throwing it in the river. Because it only leads to disaster, humiliation and disaster.

It's not like the river isn't full of mind-altering substances already, and more bodies than Rook knows what to do with.

Rook dumps his pack against the door, and sits on the dock, one leg in the water. He doesn't want to shoot anyone today, he doesn't want to kill his way through an outpost, or listen to anyone talk about how Peggies murdered their whole family. He just wants the Resistance, and the cult, to stop existing for a while.

He's doing a fair job pretending that they have done, pretending he can be a normal person again, with normal person problems. Until someone moves into the space next to him, slowly sinks to sit on the dock. Yellow sunglasses glint in the light.

Rook sighs.

"How did you know?" he asks. He can't decide if he's annoyed or exhausted by it all. How does Joseph know anything around here? How does he always know where to find him? Showing up alone, like he has faith that Rook isn't going to put a bullet in him, like God has told him that he won't. 

Joseph says nothing, he just sits beside him, expression calm, like he's waiting for a confession, as if Rook hasn't given enough already. He's wearing a shirt for a change, though it's only half-buttoned, giving the impression that clothing is a social convention he follows out of politeness, rather than desire, or necessity. Or maybe he did it for Rook's benefit, concealing all the broken pieces, and feigning ordinary humanity, like Rook hasn't seen behind the curtain too many times already.

"It doesn't change anything," Rook says firmly. "Drunken confession or no. It doesn't matter, any more than the hundreds of people who've come to your church and seen something in you that they want to believe in, something that feels like home. You give everyone what they need, what they don't even know they need, tell people what they need to be told. Pull them in, accept everything, promise everything people want to hear, whether you believe it or not. Whatever this mess is in my head, I'm not going to be one of them. I can't -" He stops, because he's not sure he can explain it even to himself. "It doesn't matter, how am I supposed to trust you?"

Joseph's expression says quite clearly that he does believe what he preaches, and Rook doesn't know if that's better or worse. Which hurts more, naked greed and megalomania for personal gain, or jagged, painful madness all twisted up in religious conviction. 

They're both clawing themselves open to help people, but they can't both be right. They can't both win this. But they're both going to keep trying until it kills them. Whatever it is that makes Joseph feel familiar, makes him feel so necessary, makes Rook want to see him, hand twitching to lift every time Joseph reaches out, like it _knows_ him.

"You have never tried," Joseph says slowly. "You have never given me a chance. I have had nothing but refusal from you, nothing but frustrated resistance. Every time I have offered a hand you have thrown it back in my face."

"Have you seen what's happening on your path to Eden?" Rook's been wondering about that. Whether Joseph understands the fucking ruin this county is becoming, if he actually sees the bodies, or if he's deluding himself into thinking there's any mercy left in his followers. "Have you seen the bodies nailed up across the county?"

"Are we not entitled to defend ourselves against those who would threaten us?"

Rook barks a laugh. "To defend yourselves, sure, to turn people who oppose you into Christmas decorations, _fuck no_."

You can see the smoke from here, on a bad day you can hear the screaming and the gunfire from here.

"The violence was not my intention." Joseph's voice is soft, but there's no apology in it, no regret. He's still trying to explain. "So many of them resisted, so many of them refused to see."

"The violence was inevitable and you know it," Rook says flatly.

Joseph's silent, for once, as if he knows that Rook is right. Though it doesn't last long, eventually Joseph has words again, practiced and earnest, words picked out carefully to soothe his protests and his complaints. And that should make him angrier, but it's Joseph, who always manages to make utter madness sound like something close to sense.

"You have spent so long shaping yourself into what other people need, what other people can best make use of. The moment you want something for yourself, you resist it."

Rook wants to laugh again, because in what world is Joseph the right choice, no matter how many times they meet, how many times Joseph talks to him like they're old friends, or lovers. So many times, like the world thinks it's _funny_ , when Rook is held by one of his siblings, or alone in the woods, or through a radio in the deep dark, heavy part of the night. Never quite managing to wound each other with anything but words. This isn't just selfish, this is perilously close to fucking betrayal. 

"We don't get to have people just because we want them, the world doesn't work like that." Especially not when the people you wanted were trying to burn the whole world down. "No matter how much it feels like -" Like they're supposed to be together, and Rook won't say it, he can't say it. Though he has a horrible feeling that Joseph hears it anyway.

So maybe it's Rook's fault, somehow, when Joseph leans closer, like he can feel a place in Rook that will pry open, if he pulls the right way.

"You were sent here for a purpose, you were important, I always knew that. At first, in the church, I thought you were the beginning of the end, something to be fought, something to be overcome. But you survived, and you bled for them, and you spared my family. You were mine, all I had to do was make you see. But instead you stamped it down, refused to accept it."

"Forgive me for not wanting to be chosen because I was the right sort of shape to fit a prophecy," Rook says tightly.

"Would you rather be chosen on a whim?" Joseph asks. "A base desire for human contact? A need to fill an empty space, rather than be alone. Is believing that we are meant to be not better than that?"

Instead of answering that Rook breathes a laugh. Because, by all accounts, base desires had been a significant portion of his drunken confession - and, fuck it, John Seed is an asshole because he even has Rook calling it that now.

"Would you rather not be chosen at all?" Joseph offers at last.

To be not chosen at all? Or to be not chosen by Joseph, who collects followers and plays at being a father like he knows what that means. As if he didn't fail at the first hurdle when it came down to it. Rook has to wonder if all of this is to make up for that. Or if Joseph's certainty in his chosen path, and of God's hand in it, is absolute.

This is what comes of Rook's constant need to fix everything. He ends up falling for broken people who don't want to be fixed. 

"If the alternative means I get to protect a county from slaughter, then yes. Which is the reason I never said anything, that I never _stopped_ you, that I end up drunk and half mad saying things I shouldn't through a fucking radio."

Joseph leans into him, a line of warmth and strange weight, like he wants to hold him up. And that just makes it worse somehow.

"I can't," Rook breathes out. "Which is why I have to go back to town, go back to the job I've been trying to do since I came here."

"Or you could help me save them all?" Joseph says quietly. 

Rook sighs, but he doesn't stop Joseph from curving sun-warmed fingers around his wrist, of touching him, in a way that's nothing like the coaxing he'd used on Rook before. There's more of a careful indulgence to the circle of his fingers. As if Joseph wants to touch him, has wanted to touch him, and he's given up on resisting the urge.

"Isn't this a sin?" Rook asks. "The wanting, the having? You were very strict about that, about the sins of the world."

Joseph has laced their fingers together, and Rook is the stronger man by far, but somehow he can't quite convince himself to let go, to make this stop happening.

"Then be something to me that is not sinful. Something loyal, something pure, a promise, a strength that I can brace myself against when the world tries to crush me -"

Rook frowns. "You don't need me for that, promote any competent Peggie and you'll have another Herald." Because Rook thinks he's had enough of being used by either side.

"I do not need another Herald, I need someone who will stand beside me, someone who will bear the darkness with me. Someone who is loyal because -

Joseph stops talking, expression strangely open, though his eyes are on their own joined hands.

Because everyone wants to be loved, that's the thing isn't it, you can have all the followers you can gather, with their loyalty and obedience and adoration. But it's not the messy, confusing honesty of someone who loves you, all of you, even the broken parts that don't fit.

Rook swears and turns in the light, catches the warm length of Joseph's neck and turns him, fits their mouths together. And he expects Joseph to make him stop, to protest in some way and push against Rook's simple, easy desire. But the seconds flow out, drag on, keep running, while Rook works a hand into Joseph's hair, fingertips nudging the band loose, mouth pushing at Joseph's where it slowly opens under his. There's a dig of blunt nails into his waist.

It doesn't stop.

Eventually he realises that Joseph isn't going to make him stop, that he's not going to push Rook away, and that's complicated enough to hurt. Joseph kisses him like he hasn't had the chance for a very long time. Until Rook forces himself to slide his mouth away, before he loses himself here. Joseph's soft sound of protest stops him, and then there are hands on his face, holding him close enough that he can feel the warmth of Joseph's words.

"God sent you here," he says. "He sent you here for me, and you resisted, you resisted what you were supposed to be, what we were supposed to be together. You ran when you should have taken my hand."

"Your men shot at me," Rook points out. "My whole world was on fire and I didn't even know you." He still doesn't he still knows nothing but the madness that drives him, the framework of Joseph's past, the messy violence of his future. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do," he finishes at last.

"You're supposed to save these people," Joseph says firmly. "You're supposed to be mine."

"Those two things are impossible to do at the same time," Rook says tightly. 

He tries to pull away, but Joseph won't let him, at least not far, warm hands on his neck, fingers curled at his shoulders.

"Then make them possible, claim something for yourself, defy everything."

Rook should pull away, but he can't quite make himself. "That isn't as easy as you make it sound."

"You are determined," Joseph says quietly, as if he believes everything he says, and Rook doesn't know why he listens because that's what started all of this isn't it. Joseph's belief in himself, his belief in what's meant to be, even if he has to make it happen himself. "You have had more difficult challenges."

Rook isn't sure that's true, but he curses and dips in again, hand in Joseph's loosened hair, mouth an easy crush of pressure, too easy, kissing him has gone all the way from impossible to something Rook is allowed now, which feels like insanity. And maybe Joseph feels it too, because he sighs and lays his hands on either side of Rook's face again, kisses him back as if he already has him, as if Rook is already promised to him.

"You know where I'll be," Joseph tells him.

He leaves Rook with his feet in the water, staring across the glittering surface of the lake, wondering how he makes it home from this.


End file.
